


Thinking About Elephants

by recrudescence



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: fandom_stocking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 13:44:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yusuf certainly never claimed to be reputable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thinking About Elephants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rawiyaparand](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=rawiyaparand).



Having his own cut of the inception payoff in addition to Cobb's means living easy for a while. Yusuf is content to let his life die down and be a little dull while he enjoys it. With Eames around, though, there's never a dull moment.

Eames, who's taken up with Saito and is now seeking _advice_ , of all things. Of course, he doesn't call it that. Eames doesn't ask for advice. Eames shows up at his shop unannounced, with ants in his pants, a dinner reservation, and an uncharacteristic inability to speak his mind.

They do some perfunctory catching up before Eames cuts to the chase. “I've done some obscene work in the line of duty, usually when I happen to have a fabulous set of tits, but certain things have just never come up.”

“I can understand that. But please don't assume the only reason anyone could ever want you is your body. Bodies.” Yusuf watches him moodily pick at the nyama choma. “Now are you ever going to tell me what's turned you into a sulky teenager or do I have to guess?”

“He said he wanted to fuck me with his tongue, all right?”

Eames is actually very straightforward, which is amusing when one knows how duplicitous his profession is.

Yusuf's theory is that Saito likes keeping Eames close because, according to various reports, Eames was the one who saved everyone's collective arse while they were under. By adding onto Ariadne's creations, being capable of skiing like a fiend, being able to forge Morrow in far less time than he was supposed to be allotted. Eames was the one who infiltrated Fischer-Morrow to begin with and, unlike Cobb or Arthur, he neither screwed up his duties nor neglected to share any key components with the rest of the team. Saito isn't stupid. He knows value when he sees it.

“Wait.” Yusuf feels like he's waiting for the punchline. Or just the punch. “So...you've forged as a woman and been eaten out, but never as a man? You mean to tell me he's actually going to show you things you've never even dreamed of?”

Eames reaches over and pulls the dish of m'baazi to his side of the table. “And you were under the impression I'd done everything but barnyard animals, weren't you?”

Yusuf shrugs. “I've seen you moaning over duck a l'orange and had my doubts.”

“Thank you. You're a gem.”

A horrible thought occurs to him. “I'm not giving you an enema. That's all on you. And Google.”

“Oh, piss off. I'm many things, but I'm not _incompetent_.”

“Look, of all problems you _could_ be having, this is nothing. For example, you're not officially a homewrecker now, are you?”

Eames has told him that Saito has a wife, as well as a mistress with whom he's since cut ties. It's Eames's belief that said wife has excursions of her own but they both turn a blind eye towards one another's exploits because they're revoltingly rich and can afford to carry on however they like.

“Not the point,” Eames says. “And it isn't as though I can sit down with his wife and have this conversation, is it?”

“Tell me why I've become your sex therapist?”

“Because you owe me one after the time you accidentally got married to two different women within twenty-four hours.”

Yusuf hasn't been to Las Vegas but the once and he doesn't plan on visiting again. “Ah, yes. Thank you for mentioning that. I need to surround myself with more people who can produce annulments at the drop of a hat.”

He's sure that Eames could drop Saito and move along if he truly had a mind to, but Saito is a very good connection to have and if Eames would have disappeared long ago if he honestly didn't want to monkey around with him. There's also a certain reciprocity to take into account: Saito no doubt likes having someone with Eames's skills at his fingertips. Yusuf has no doubts about this. He'd be a fool to think Eames hadn't given Saito's background a deep and thorough digging before taking this sort of step with him.

He flags down a waiter for more chai and then gets to the point. “I know you didn't come all the way out here just to pay a social call and gossip about your depravities.”

For a few minutes, Eames is quiet. “Maybe you don't know me as well as you think.” He grins, but it's strained.

Yusuf quietly occupies himself with some kachumbari. He's almost ready to let Eames off the hook and change the subject to something safe and inane, like how fresh the cilantro is, but then Eames looks up.

“I think limbo really did a number on him.”

“You don't say. Define 'did a number,' will you?”

Eames doesn't seem to have heard him. “He fucks like he's dying. He's never carried on like this with a man, if he's to be believed, but fuck all if he isn't going balls to the wall with it.”

“I actually do find that hard to believe. He can buy anything and anyone he wants. He's used to being taken seriously.”

Over his cup, Eames smirks at him. “Jealous, are we?”

“Maybe just a bit.” Yusuf has repeatedly been mistaken for a teaching assistant or something similar, not receiving preferential treatment until he drops a fine chunk of change on something or other. He sometimes feels a little guilty for taking Cobb's cut, but he hears Cobb is more than pleased to live in retirement. Not to mention there's a certain appeal to having these kinds of finances at his fingertips. His dreaming den and his sister's wedding have both been able to undergo a very nice overhaul thanks to it. And if he contemplates buying himself access to summer homes, research facilities, and clinical trials, no one can say he isn't allowed. Even if he still looks more like an absentminded academic than anything.

“If I were to be obtuse enough to take you at face value and believe this really _is_ just about sex, I'd say to have him do it while you're both under if you have reservations about it,” he suggests, watching with resignation as Eames polishes off the last of the m'baazi.

“Saito doesn't care to go under anymore.”

Yusuf can't blame him. “Right, of course. Look, once you've infiltrated someone's mind together, you form a bond. It makes sense that he would want to maintain it.”

“I know.”

“But you... _don't_ want to maintain it?”

“Don't be ridiculous, having Saito at my back has made my life much easier.”

“And are you bored because of that?”

Eames huffs. “Where in the hell did I say anything that might have made you assume I'm _bored_?”

“Fine, so you're _not_ bored. You're enjoying yourself, but not sure what to make of it, then?” When Eames doesn't answer, Yusuf is strongly compelled to flip the table over. “I can keep asking questions, but it's going to take all bloody night to hit the right one at the rate we're going.”

“I don't want to leave him on his own; he needs someone there who can understand what he experienced. He won't ever admit to feeling vulnerable even if he is.”

“And you don't mind being that person, but you don't want to say so.”

“This is why I talk to you.”

“Because I say things you don't want to acknowledge out loud? Yes, I know.”

Eames finishes his chai and stares rather grimly into the empty cup. “He doesn't ever mention what he got up to down there. I don't think I want to know. I just know I don't want him turning into Cobb.”

“So don't let him.”

“It isn't that fucking simple. He's not a pet I can train to be a certain way. Or a patient I can chain to a PASIV all damn day.”

Yusuf disregards that dig. “Sexual proclivities aren't the issue here at all, but I'm sure you wish they were. It would be so much simpler.” Eames's jaw tightens slightly, which Yusuf pretends not to notice as well. ”He wants you around, maybe even needs you around.”

“That would be the problem. I mean, I was supposed to forge a painting for a client to transport, but Saito learned about it and bought the original because he thought it would save time.”

“Didn't it?”

“Yes. But that's not the point. Another time, I was supposed to be a notary and—”

“Eames. Enough.”

“I want to extract from him,” Eames says curtly, his gaze blazing.

Yusuf knows he heard that right, but he blinks anyway. “What?”

“Everything. I don't want him to remember limbo. I want him to believe he died there in the bottom level and that was the end of it until the kick woke us up.”

“You care about his well-being this much, really?”

“You should, too, considering how much you were paid thanks to him.”

Yusuf doesn't say that there must be more, that this is the first time he's ever heard Eames mention extraction in an altruistic light. That means something, but it's something he isn't prepared to define. It's disturbing, the idea that dreaming technology could be used to erase portions of a person's memories for their own good as defined by outside sources, but it's not very different than the way he enables a roomful of addicts as a matter of course. And income.

“I can do it,” Eames tells him in a low voice, and there's a certain ferocity to his words.

Extracting information is disreputable but doable; erasing it is another matter. Then again, he once would have said the same thing about inception, and Yusuf certainly never claimed to be reputable.

“I suppose,” he says, “you'll be needing a chemist.”


End file.
